Where Dracula Was Born
Place: Sighisoara (aka Schassburg), Romania
I did not wake up until almost 1 pm the next day. Oop!
Of course, I still hadn・t got over it. I still could not get over that fact that, I just lost my camera and DV, together with the memory card with hundreds of pictures (and the memories they represents), merely a day ago.
I really needed a few more days・ rest before I could move on to continue my journey.
Now I was in Sighisoara, a city near the geographical center of Romania. With only about 36,000 people, it cannot even be called a ：city.； However, tourists flood here mainly for one attraction, it was where the world・s most famous vampire, ：Count Dracula was born.
To begin with, "Dracula" is actually a literature myth. It is a figure created by Anglo-Irish writer Bram Stoker (who had never set his feet in Romania but only conducted his research in the British Museum) in his 1897 horror fiction ：Dracula.； ( for those of us who are much younger than that fiction, it later was adapted into a very bad and campy movie ：Dracula； by Francis Coppola, featuring beautiful but wooden Keanu Reeve and Wynona Ryder, a young Monica Bellucci as cameo, and Gary Oldman dressed as a Chinese old lady). Stoker based his figure on a real-life historic figure, the Prince Vlad ：the impaler； Tepes (for more of this person・s historic background, click this link: http://www.donlinke.com/drakula/vlad.htm). Though Vlad Tepes was very cruel, there was no evidence that he actually was a vampire and sucked blood. However, the Dracula myth has been going on for years and in many ways it has been helping Romania to rake in tons of tourist money.
That afternoon, slightly recovered from hangover, I spent some time walking around the old walled citadel of Sighisoara (again, this whole walled-city is a UNESCO-designated site). It is that type of place that seems hasn't changed a bit in the past 600 years.
From the Piata Hermann Oberth at the commercial center (where the disco ：No Name； is located), there is a curved covered steps leading up into the old center. The second gate at the top of the steps lies right underneath the famous Clock Tower (Turnul cu Ceas).
Looking up to the Tower, there are some cute slowly revolving figurines in the giant Clock. Entering the Tower, it is Sighisoara's History Museum. Though not a museum with great exhibition (they do have English and even German subtitles), the view from the top of the Tower is wonderful.
Walking toward the main Square, Piata Cetatii, I passed by the "Casa Dracula," the house of Dracula. Yes, it is really the house where Vlad Tepes was born (in 1431). Now it houses an expensive restaurant, with a tacky and cartoon-like vampire figure standing at the entrance. I was so amused by the funny vampire figure and wanted to take out of my camera to shoot. Then I realized that I no longer had a camera.
Piata Cetatii is small but quite touristy. Most of the Square is now occupied by chairs and tables of the restaurants and coffeehouses nearby. I had a simple lunch at the Café International and Family Center (http://www.veritas.ro/house.htm , which offers largely vegetarian meals, yeah!), on the north side of the Square. I was glad that most of the staff speaks English quite well. The vegi panini sandwich (5 Lei) was delicious. Then I continued my sightseeing.
Turning south from Piata Cetatii, leading up Str. Scolii, it is the Scara Acoperita (Covered stairway). Its 172 steps lead all the way up to another hill higher up. However, due to that it is covered, I found the stairway a little too dark at some points. On top of the hill, it is a Lutheran church, called ：Church on the Hill； (Biserica din Deal), and behind the Church, an enormous German cemetery.
Both the church and the cemetery remind me the legacy of German immigrants in Transylvania. Called "Saxons" by local Romanians, Germans from Rhineland (which is not near the province of Saxon at all) started to relocate to this region in 12th century. They founded seven towns and thus gave Transylvania its German name: Siebenbuergen (：seven fortresses). Checking my Lonely Planet information, I was not surprised to find that almost all the most famous Transylvanian towns are one of those ：seven fortresses.； Sighisoara, with a German name Schaessburg, thus has a large Lutheran church and a cemetery buried with most Germans.
Walking into the cemetery, it started to rain. I usually do not like to stroll in a cemetery, My cultural upbringing always tells me it is a not good thing to walk in a cemetery (some Taiwanese superstition about ghosts and unclean spirits). However, I vaguely remember that Sabina from Milan Kundera's classics "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" does enjoy walking in cemeteries. Because she feels it is so quaint and so purified in senses that strolling there actually helps her to be more introspective, It helps her to think about a lot of issues about in life, and after life.
The rain started to pour. Aside from two people I saw earlier near the entrance, I did not see another person around. This cemetery is huge but also well-maintained. It is actually quite nice in there, so I just walked downhills to see the lower part of it.
Walking in cemeteries helps Sabina to think about many things more clearly. Can it do the same for me? It just came to me that I should have NOT lost my camera. I had already had bad feeling the night before I boarded, so why didn't I tie my bag tightly all through my trip? Or at least, why didn't I think about taking the memory card out, just in case?
I started to feel a very strong sense of helplessness. Just like what have happened in the past 18 months, no matter how hard I tried, I still could not prevent bad things keep happening. Just like, actually, what have happened in the past 14 years...no matter what...
The rain kept falling down, then I started to cry.
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